README.markdown

What is GitX?

GitX is a graphical client for the git version control system, written
specifically for OS X Mavericks.

This means that it has a native interface and tries to integrate with the
operating system as good as possible. Examples of this are drag and drop
support and QuickLook support.

Legacy builds are available for older OS X platforms, see below.

What is GitX-dev?

This fork (variant) of GitX focuses on programmer-oriented features for those
working with the latest tools for developing software for current Apple platforms.
As such, it only supports 64-bit Intel macs, and currently deploying versions of OS X and Xcode.

Drawing several important early improvements from mainline "official" GitX
from GitX (L) and others, we are prioritizing moving away from deprecated
or unreliable technologies like a dependency on command-line git usage
to drive GitX features; and staying up-to-date with Apple and third-party
frameworks and libraries that are used.

GitX-dev uses the Sparkle framework for in-app updates; so once you have version 0.11 (December 2011) or later, you can check for or update to new builds from the GitX menu at any time, or opt-in for automatic updates.

Older releases

The last build compatible with OS X Lion (10.7) is 0.15.1949, from July 27th 2014. Among the reasons that OS X 10.7 support has been dropped is that it does not fully support ARC, application sandboxing, and other modern programming features like XPC services. It also breaks in ways that cannot be reproduced on newer platforms, and so has been a disproportionate support load; and a poor experience for users on this platform.

The last build compatible with OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) is 0.14.81, from February 4th 2013. Among the OS X features that Snow Leopard does not support is Objective-C ARC, which is now the only non-deprecated memory management system on OS X.

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) support for new builds will be ending soon, probably around Q2 2015.

The maintainence strategy will be as with Snow Leopard and Lion,
a legacy build will be earmarked for any new installs on these platforms.

Features

The project is well underway, and based on the solid foundations of GitX and
GitX (L), used day-to-day by our developers. We consider GitX-dev to be
close to feature-complete, with very few workflows dependant on manual
command-line git usage.

History browsing of your repository

See a nicely formatted diff of any revision

Search based on author or revision subject

Look at the complete tree of any revision

Preview any file in the tree in a text view or with QuickLook

Drag and drop files out of the tree view to copy them to your system

Support for all parameters git rev-list has

Good performance on large (200+ MB) repositories

Development

Developing for GitX-dev has a few requirements above and beyond those
for mainline GitX.

Most third-party code is referenced with Git submodules, so read up on those if you're not familiar.

Very recent Xcode install, 5.1 release strongly recommended.

Most development is done on OS X Mavericks, earlier host platforms may or may not work at all.

Homebrew and xctool for running Objective-Git’s bootstrap script.

CMake with a working command-line compiling environment for building libgit2.

After that you should be able to open the Xcode project and build successfully.

License

GitX is licensed under the GPL version 2. For more information, see the attached COPYING file.

Usage

GitX itself is fairly simple. Most of its power is in the 'gitx' binary, which
you should install through the menu. the 'gitx' binary supports most of git
rev-list's arguments. For example, you can run gitx --all to display all
branches in the repository, or gitx -- Documentation to only show commits
relating to the 'Documentation' subdirectory. With gitx -Shaha, gitx will
only show commits that contain the word 'haha'. Similarly, with gitx v0.2.1.., you will get a list of all commits since version 0.2.1.

Helping out

Any help on GitX is welcome. GitX is programmed in Objective-C, but even if
you are not a programmer you can do useful things. A short selection: